I wonder how much of that brick will be salvagable? Looks like mostly repairable exterior damage and hopefully no harm done to Salad King or that sushi restaurant, which is possibly the first successful business to occupy that space in decades.

The owner of the building is apparently not the best seed, so I'm not very optimistic about this. A lot of buildings on Yonge appear to be in a serious state of disrepair, and the losers responsible belong in the same category as homeowners with trash-strewn yards imo.

Really makes me appreciate the great job property managers like Allied have done with the old warehouses in the Entertainment District. The LED lighting is a bit much, but you'll probably never have to dodge falling masonry.

Part of Ryerson closed after wall collapses
Brick fašade of building lands on sidewalk
Published 8 minutes ago

Inspectors sifted through rubble Friday afternoon to find out why bricks from the fašade of a building near Ryerson University came crashing down on the sidewalk.

“We don’t know what caused it,” said Ann Borooah, executive director and chief building official for the city.

She said a building permit had been issued for renovations in a first-floor unit of the building on Gould St. near Yonge St. and that there likely “would have been a building inspection. What we don’t know is if that had anything to do with the collapse.”

A large part of Ryerson University’s campus and several streets in the downtown core were shut down at about 12:30 p.m. Friday when the bricks began raining down.

A Toronto Fire spokesperson said the bricks fell from the second floor of the three-storey building, leaving piles of debris on the sidewalk. Police search-and-rescue dogs combed through the building to make sure nobody was trapped. Nobody was hurt in the incident.

Midday and rush-hour traffic snarled after police closed Yonge St. from Dundas St. north to Gerrard St., and along Gould from Yonge St. to Victoria St., while emergency crews worked at the scene.

City Councillor Kyle Rae, whose ward includes the building, visited the site Friday afternoon. “It was just devastating to see it,” he said.

Rae recalled securing money for a “heritage fašade grant” of up to $35,000 for the building about three years ago.

“But I don't think they ever did it,” he said. “It was for the heritage building, for the external fašade. ... I remember fighting to get it into the budget.”

According to a Ministry of Government Services Corporation Profile report, the building is owned by a numbered company whose administrator Noorali Lalani could not be reached for comment.

According to the City of Toronto website, an application for interior alterations on the ground floor at 335 Yonge St. had been issued Nov. 24, 2009. The work was being done on the new 54-seat Tatami restaurant which opened recently. It’s one of several linked units that comprise the building. Tatami is next door to the unit where the bricks fell.

The website noted that an inspection had been scheduled Feb. 17, 2010. According to Borooah, “There were inspections but no request for a final inspection to date.”

Borooah said city inspectors were at the scene “looking at what needs to be done to make the building safe. And it’s likely that either the owner will be undertaking work under our orders or we’ll have to do it ourselves in the next little while.”

One of the reasons for the collapse may have been extensive renovations and alterations to the building over the years, said Dave Bowick, a professor at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design at the University of Toronto.

Large sections of the wall on the Gould St. side had been knocked out and replaced with big windows and glass doors, he said.

“The storefront opening and glazing wouldn’t be the original condition of the building when it was built,” he said Friday after viewing a photo, adding the three-storey structure would only have had small windows on the upper levels. Changes to the building over the years “to create more openness to the street,” may have been factors.

But there are other reasons walls collapse. Bowick said moisture creeping into bricks could cause a wall to collapse because repeated freezing and contraction could push them apart.

Look at the Lalani Group lease advert and the hideously dilapidated condition of the windows and brick directly above. Is that a slab of plywood on the top? "FOR LEASE: This Hideous Piece of Shit." It looks like something from the worst part of Hamilton. What the hell.

Look at the Lalani Group lease advert and the hideously dilapidated condition of the windows and brick directly above. Is that a slab of plywood on the top?

it is indeed--its amazing that the landlord has been allowed to let the building decay like this. isn't there some kind of "Commercial Fašade Improvement Program" happening as part of the Downtown Business Improvement Area thingy?

I wonder how much of that brick will be salvagable? Looks like mostly repairable exterior damage and hopefully no harm done to Salad King or that sushi restaurant, which is possibly the first successful business to occupy that space in decades.

The owner of the building is apparently not the best seed, so I'm not very optimistic about this. A lot of buildings on Yonge appear to be in a serious state of disrepair, and the losers responsible belong in the same category as homeowners with trash-strewn yards imo.

Asking, as I have no idea:

1) Should any of the brick be considered salvagable?

2) What does "mostly repairable exterior damage" really mean? From the picture that looks pretty severe. I wonder about the status of the support pillars too. Surely having an entire wall give way can't be a good sign. However, could those be steel support beams I see?

Yesterday they were hosting a conference for leaders from BIA's from around North America and the world. When I spoke to my bosses from the Downtown Yonge BIA, they explained how they were begging the owner to make changes and suggesting grants, etc., but it seemed the owner just wanted to wait until it fell down so they could build something different there.

How this building isn't designated, however, I don't know.

The owner will definitely be penalized heftily if justice takes its course.